Some year! Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and a good few others. After browsing the premier lists for 1939, the movies I have settled on are Dark Victory (Bette Davis), At the Circus (the Marx Brothers) and Each Dawn I Die (James Cagney and George Raft).
- Bette Davis
DARK VICTORY (22 April 1939) USA
Director: Edmund Goulding.
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart.
Plot: Davis is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and has to come to terms with it, as well managing amorous advances from various quarters.
Review: A mixed bag, saved by the jittery brilliance of Bette Davis and solid performances from some of the supporting cast. Geraldine Fitzgerald as Davis’s best friend stands out, and Humphrey Bogart, in a relatively minor role, steals almost every scene he appears in, in spite of an appalling attempt at an Irish accent.
Geraldine Fitzgeralds’s other big role was with Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon and David Niven in Wuthering Heights (also 1939), and she continued appearing in various supporting or minor roles into her eighties. She died in 1991. Sadly, both she and Ronald Regan (who pops up occasionally in this movie as a permanently intoxicated barfly) developed dementia in real life, so this adds an ironic poignancy to the movie.
Aside from that, it’s a curious mixture of wooden performances (including Davis’s movie and real life beau, George Brent), wobbly backdrops and historical curiosity, with lighted cigarettes everywhere, even on the hospital wards. This was a decade and a half before the founding of the Actors Studio. Mannered, classical acting prevails, making the naturalistic talents of Bogart and Fitzgerald stand out even more. Bette Davis sits somewhere in the middle of these values in this movie, a combination of studio system old hat and raw ability. I initially scored this movie low, but both the performances and themes stayed in my mind – the sign of a good movie, I think – which bumped it up a notch.
Score: 4/10, mainly for its curiosity value.
- Groucho Marx
AT THE CIRCUS (20 October 1939) USA
Director: Edward Buzzell.
Cast: Groucho, Chico & Harpo Marx.
Plot: slapstick, wisecracks and the occasional song.
Review: Chose this out of an optimistic recollection of the genius of Groucho Marx and company, however, it was dull and uninteresting, and I soon started fast-forwarding through it. The whole affair was laboured. As part of a 1930s afternoon out, along with a walk in Central Park and meal at a diner, it might have had a place, but the movie holds no entertainment value today.
Rating: 0/10.
- George Raft
EACH DAWN I DIE (24 December 1939) USA
Director: William Keighley.
Cast: James Cagney, George Raft.
Plot: Wrongfully imprisoned reporter James Cagney and mobster George Raft strike up an unlikely friendship while in jail, and find themselves dependent on each other to find their respective freedom, both practically and mentally.
Review: I was initially reluctant to have this as one of my three choices, mainly because of the thought of Raft’s droning voice. However, being unimpressed by clips I saw from Of Mice And Men (an adaptation of a Steinbeck novel) and wishing to avoid Wind and Oz, decided it to give it a look.
Raft certainly plays to type, but is young and relatively animated here, and comes over as a sympathetic character (although not one you’d invite to a dinner party). The plot very much depends on the conflict between his priorities as a mobster and the relationship he strikes up with Cagney’s integrity-beset reporter. Raft was known for hobnobbing with mobsters in real life, and is even alleged to have prevented a ‘hit’ on Cagney when the mob had taken a dislike to him because of his union activities, so there are curious parallels on-screen with their off-screen lives.
Cagney is simply excellent. A scene where he suddenly breaks down in front of a parole board is very moving, as are his restrained facial expressions when he is forced to stand back while terrible things are happening around him during a prison riot.
The plot keeps one guessing. One kind of knows that the good guy will win, but not how, or where Raft’s surprisingly complicated character will fit in to this. It is also a nicely put-together movie, from screenplay to shot composition to final editing.
Score: 6/10.
So, the Best Movie of 1939 is …
EACH DAWN I DIE (6/10)
… because James Cagney just doesn’t know how to make a bad movie, and this unlikely pairing of characters and acting styles works a treat.
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James Cagney and George Raft – their only main feature together, although they had crossed paths in minor roles in a couple of other movies.
THE BEST MOVIE OF ... 
Backlots blog entry on In Name Only (1939)
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